Cuba
| Former allies say the former dictator knows only one title: the boss

by Priya Abraham Posted 3/08/08, 12:00 am

As Fidel Castro first slipped his grip on power following intestinal surgery in 2006, 88-year-old Huber Matos remembered the day he met the bearded revolutionary chief nearly half a century ago, on March 31, 1958.

Matos had made it to Cuba's Sierra Maestra mountains with a stash of weapons from Costa Rica, and Castro hugged him and showed his delight until Matos said he wanted to stop his gun-running and stay in Cuba. Then Castro said sternly, "Look, I am the boss."

Movies
| The Kite Runner offers a new and refreshing look at ordinary family life in Afghanistan

by Priya Abraham Posted 12/15/07, 12:00 am

The impact of Khaled Hosseini's Afghan bestselling novel, The Kite Runner, stretches beyond the massive 8 million copies it has sold worldwide. In its celluloid version (rated PG-13 for strong thematic material including the rape of a child, violence, and brief strong language), the story will do much to show ordinary family life in the Muslim world.

Books
| Noted companion of persecuted believers, Brother Andrew has another way to fight terrorism

by Priya Abraham Posted 12/08/07, 12:00 am

For Westerners, the Muslim radical's cry for jihad-holy war-means suicide bombings and 9/11. But Brother Andrew, the Dutch evangelist famous for sneaking Bibles into communist Europe, has a milder sense of the word. When the apostle Paul says he has "fought the good fight" in 2 Timothy, an Arabic-language Bible translates it as "the good jihad." It's time, Brother Andrew says in his new book, for Western Christians to help much-oppressed Muslims who convert to Christianity to fight well.

Sudan
| Sudan's president calls out his militia while southern leader draws his own line in the sand

Priya Abraham | 12/01/07, 12:00 am

In 1990, as civil war flamed between Sudan's North and South, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir met with a UN official to discuss 400,000 Ethiopian refugees camped in Sudan. The UN official agreed that Bashir needed help caring for them but said an equal number of Bashir's southern Sudanese, also refugees, were languishing in Ethiopia. "They're not my people," Bashir retorted.

National Security
| Controversy over renditions focuses more on use of torture than a tool of justice

Priya Abraham | 11/17/07, 12:00 am

Canadian Maher Arar was flying home from Tunisia in 2002 from a family vacation when he was arrested at New York's JFK airport, interrogated, and put on a private jet to Syria, his birth country. He spent the next year under torture in a jail cell 3 feet wide, 6 feet long, and 7 feet high in hopes he would reveal more about his alleged al-Qaeda connection. He apparently knew nothing, and authorities released him without charge.

Congo
| With focus on the Middle East, brutal fighting in Congo is worsening

Priya Abraham | 11/10/07, 12:00 am

Warning: graphic material included

War has supposedly ended in Democratic Republic of Congo. Around the sprawling country, the largest in central Africa, people voted in elections last year and armed militias turned in their weapons. But Congo's east refuses to be pacified.

Pakistan
| She survived one assassination attempt, but threats against Benazir Bhutto aren't over

Priya Abraham | 11/03/07, 12:00 am

After tallying the deaths, visiting the wounded, and mourning the sons lost, Pakistani political hopeful Benazir Bhutto faced yet more threats. Days after two suicide bombers ripped through her homecoming procession in Karachi, killing about 140, her lawyer received a letter. The writer, the self-proclaimed "head of the suicide bombers and a friend of al-Qaida," threatened to kill Bhutto "like a goat."

Movies
| The story and the makers behind the Bella do not come from Central Casting

Priya Abraham | 11/03/07, 12:00 am

Talk to the creators of Bella, a quiet new film with a pro-life theme, and their faces often get a certain look: incredulous, even wonder-struck. Most of the time, they cannot believe their humble production has come so far.

Sports
| A small but competitive group of Americans falls in love with the ancient Chinese sport of dragon boat racing

Priya Abraham | 10/27/07, 12:00 am

PRINCETON, N.J. - Two days before the big race, a long, blade-like canoe paused at sunset on the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. Twenty paddlers crouched in tight pairs steadied the craft, called a dragon boat, awaiting instructions from their steersman.